Aircraft accidents

On 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed in Donetsk Oblast, Eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board MH17, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, died. It claimed the lives of 193 Dutch nationals, 43 from Malaysia, and 27 from Australia. Other victims came from a variety of countries including Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany and the Philippines. From the start, both the investigation into the cause of the crash and the criminal investigation into the downing of Flight MH17 were severely challenged due to the ongoing armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists, supported by the Russian Federation, and the Ukrainian government.

Pilot fatigue has long been stated as a concern in the airline industry. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has previously proposed setting limits on the duration that pilots can fly. Fatigue leads to slower reaction times and impaired concentration and decision making.
18 February 2016, new EASA Flight Time Limitations (FTL) rules (EU Regulation 83/2014) come into effect.
The aviation industry shifts to a fully harmonised European set of rules aimed at preventing air crew fatigue from constituting a risk to flight safety. Aviation accidents are still extremely rare, but when they have occurred, figures show that 80% are a result of human error, with pilot fatigue accounting for 15-20% of human error in fatal accidents.

The route of Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771. Source: http://www.wikipedia.org/ In the early morning of Wednesday May 12 2010 Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771, crashed at about 06:10 local time in Tripoli, Libya, near the runway of the airport. The aircraft was shattered to pieces. The airbus (EAD.PA) A330-200 was flying from Johannesburg to Tripoli. Of the […]

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Treaties

Considering the fundamental role of treaties in international relations and recognizing the importance of treaties as a source of international law, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties was adopted in 1969. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties regulates the conclusion and entry into force of treaties, the application and interpretation of treaties as well as the amendment, invalidity and termination of treaties. According to Article 2 of this multilateral agreement, a ‘treaty’ means ‘an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation.